STATINS AND DIABETES

Statin use for primary prevention of cardiovascular disease among healthy adults has been linked to an increased risk for diabetes, diabetes complications, and overweight/obesity in a new retrospective cohort study that tracked individuals in a database for an average of 6.5 years.



"Whereas the increased risk of diabetes with statins is well-known, the increased risk of diabetic complications has not been previously described," write the authors, led by Ishak Mansi, MD, from the department of medicine, Veterans Affairs (VA) North Texas Health System, Dallas.
They report their findings in the Journal of General Internal Medicine and note that these are among the first data to show a connection between statins and diabetes in a relatively healthy group of people.

"The risk of diabetes with statins has been known, but until now it was thought that this might be due to the fact that people who were prescribed statins had greater medical risks to begin with," said Dr Mansi in a VA statement.

The author of another recent study, which reported the largest risk yet seen for diabetes with statins, Markku Laakso, MD, from the University of Eastern Finland and Kuopio University, has urged caution when considering statin use in primary prevention.

"Statins are not meant to be a treatment for everybody. Especially in women, who are at a lower risk of getting cardiovascular disease, maybe we should be more careful when we start statin treatment?" he said in March, when his work was published.

Take Steps to Control Oestrogen Levels

Oestrogen is the name given to an important group of compounds that affect the growth and function of tissues throughout the body, including the tissues responsible for reproduction. It plays a significant role in maintaining cardiovascular function, helps keep our bones healthy and has a strong influence over our mood and behaviour.⁽¹⁾ In other words, both men and women need oestrogen in appropriate levels to maintain optimum health.

Unfortunately, most of us live in a world that is detached from nature. Our environments are becomingly increasingly polluted, our lifestyles are becoming more sedentary and our food is much more toxic than ever before. All of these factors can greatly destabilize our oestrogen levels, causing us to suffer from fatigue, low libido, insomnia, depression, cravings, weight gain and many other symptoms associated with a hormone imbalance.⁽²⁾

For this reason, it's important that all of us make some effort to help stabilize our estrogen levels. This article provides three major steps that help us achieve this important, health-boosting goal.

Decrease our body fat and improve our diet

Decreasing our body fat is a great way to help stabilize our oestrogen levels, since fat tissue increases our levels of aromatase, the enzyme that turns testosterone to oestrogen.⁽³⁾ Additionally, a study published by the American Association for Cancer Research notes that high body fat increases the incidence of "cancers arising from tissues responsive to oestrogenic stimulation, including endometrium, breast, and prostate."⁽⁴⁾

The two greatest steps we can take towards maintaining low body fat is to eat a diet rich in organic whole foods and to exercise regularly (ideally both cardio and strength training). Foods high in beneficial fatty acids, such as avocados and raw coconut oil, are known to be especially effective at normalizing oestrogen levels, as are adaptogenic foods that stimulate the adaptive mechanisms of our body, such as maca and ashwagandha.⁽⁵⁾ Moreover, we will also benefit from the removal of oestrogenic foods, such as unfermented soy products, which contain substances that mimic oestrogen and can contribute to endocrine dysfunction.⁽⁶⁾

Supplement our diet with essential nutrients

Though an improved diet alone can significantly normalize our oestrogen levels, we can help accelerate the process by supplementing our diet with nutrients that are known to help metabolize oestrogen in the body. The best of these nutrients include magnesium and vitamin B6 (which play important roles in oestrogen clearance by the liver)⁽⁷⁾, omega-3 fish oils, melatonin, selenium and zinc. The powerful antioxidant vitamin E is also known to aid oestrogen elimination and can inhibit the growth of prostate and breast cancer cells.⁽⁸⁾

Minimize our exposure to oestrogen imitators

Minimizing our exposure to oestrogen imitators is another important step towards stabilizing our estrogen levels, but it is also the most difficult one, since oestrogen imitators are virtually everywhere. Perhaps the most notorious of these imitators is bisphenol A (BPA), a synthetic compound used to make certain plastics, but diethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP), dioxin, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and polybrominated biphenyls (PBB) are some of the many other oestrogen imitators lurking in our environment.⁽⁹⁾

According to a 2011 study published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, simply eating a diet that contains minimal packaging (i.e., a fresh food diet) can substantially reduce our exposure to BPA and DEHP,⁽¹⁰⁾ though avoiding plastics in general, unless we can confirm that products are free from pollutants, is a more secure strategy. Furthermore, drinking water that has been purified by reverse osmosis or distillation will ensure that we're not inadvertently consuming these hormone-disrupting chemicals.
Courtesy: Natural News